Pending Rent.

So as a part of our one of our Papers, we're studying Margaret Atwood's poetry. As far as nationality is concerned, Margaret is Canadian and her poetry, along with Pablo Neruda and Derek Walcott, is categorised as the poetry of the Americas. I have to say I prefer Neruda and am becoming progressively drugged and addicted to his writings. He's so effortlessly expressive. He's like the Magpie, I'd want to talk to. He's like the Magpie, I'd use to communicate with my clan. Such subtle extraordinariness in his Love Poetry.

"I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her."

(Tonight I Can Write..., Line 26)

Even in his nightmare like dilemma, he's at ease. Even in his awkward uncertainty, is this hint of clarity. The discernment glosses over all doubt. Must read Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924), to have a greater insight into Neruda's indescribably smooth and effectively communicative poetry. Begin following www.twitter.com/NerudaLove for the same reasons. I can't wait for Il Postino's screening coming Wednesday. I know the admiration and the "simple liking" will quadruple.

Atwood, is differently luring because of her convincing feminist stand on receiving equality in expression. Till now, I've concluded that amongst other endeavors, she wants women to be a part of the surface reality. I think the fact that there needs to be a consciously emphasized theory on "feminism", makes her shudder. Just a personal reading. In all its oddity, reading her poems, have accelerated me to have this faint image of her. I haven't googl-ed what she looks like. But I'm going to do it now and see if it matches. This is not physically descriptive, to say the least, but Atwood looks sensible. She looks like she'd say reasonable things and doesn't look like the kind who'd make hollow statements to prove her insignificance.

Pardon my going off on a complete tangent, but this whole idea of measuring every tangible and visible aspect of an individual makes me want to slit someone's active brain and lay it on the table of good looks. If your appetite is like mine, you'd probably want to hog on the brain and let all the herbal and good smelling make up kit behind.

So today in class, while everyone was busy jotting down every monosyllabic or polysyllabic word that the professor said, I was re-reading and re-re-readingThe Landlady. While reading Atwood's poetry, one must keep in mind her incessant chant of speeding the journey of a woman, of placing her achievements at the same focal point as other gender-based accolades, of letting the talent of the woman float in her accepted swimsuit with the corresponding trunks, and not let it drown. I don't think she's looking for a forced excavation into a woman's ability. In fact, she doesn't even feel the need to establish that a woman is able and equipped. That has already been foregrounded. I think her quest is to accentuate greater acknowledgement of that talent.

The following poem is particularly interesting because if you choose, you could plunge into more relevant meanings of time and age.

The Landlady

This is the lair of the landlady

She is

a raw voice

loose in the rooms beneath me.

the continuous henyard

squabble going on below

thought in this house like

the bicker of blood through the head.

She is everywhere, intrusive as the smells

that bulge in under my doorsill;

she presides over my

meagre eating, generates

the light for eyestrain.

From her I rent my time:

she slams

my days like doors.

Nothing is mine.

and when I dream images

of daring escapes through the snow

I find myself walking

always over a vast face

which is the land-

lady's, and wake up shouting.

She is a bulk, a knot

swollen in a space. Though I have tried

to find some way around

her, my senses

are cluttered by perception

and can't see through her.

She stands there, a raucous fact

blocking my way:

immutable, a slab

of what is real.

solid as bacon.

The Landlady is this stock hurdle in everyone's life. She's like this blob of ice you're expected to consume by sucking into it with a straw. She's like this horrible stomach cringe, which you experience when you laugh unendingly and just can't seem to stop.

There's an escapist in all of us. Some of us remain in denial of this fact, while others are in a polar state of omniscience. There's something unpleasant and unappealing about all our lives. If you're disagreeing, you belong to the more dangerous category of remaining in denial. Snap out of it. And, encounter this unpleasantness. This Landlady is your sheet of jumbled and asymmetrically aligned words. Solve it. At least, try. Handle her. Adjust with her interference. Help her loosen up instead of tightening your own presence.

The Landlady, is an ordinary piece of bacon, she's a part of your everyday meal, she's the side order, she's the sidekick to a wholesome and sumptuous exotic meal. She might be your annoying daily breakfast, but the fact is that, breakfast will always be the most important meal of the day. You got to eat it. The luxury of being seduced by the exotic meal is not your reality. It's a one-time pleasurable experience. So alter your quest and make do with the routinely slab of bacon. It'll fill your stomach even though your taste buds are complaining of monotony and and unwanted dry existence.

The underlying oxymoron in "...my senses are cluttered by perception is promising. Notice it. And comment on it because I want direction and clarity in my perception of it.

Who would've thought that the frustrated, ever curious and inevitable Landlady would be much more than the frizz in her hair!